


Nights That Bind Us

by Gammarad



Category: Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Anarchs, Auspex, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, Camarilla, Canon Clan Disciplines, Dominate, F/F, False Accusations, Femdom, Femsub, Potence, Presence, Service Submission, Thaumaturgy, Vampire Politics, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:28:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23999005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad
Summary: The council appears pleased at the whole stupid mess. The Malkavian primogen is not present, and the rest hate and distrust the Tremere. One of Johanne's clan being accused of two Kindred slayings and held to account like this seems to be their idea of schadenfreude, if not justice.The only silver lining is, at least the Ventrue who's been assigned as her warden is gorgeous.
Relationships: Original Female Tremere/Original Female Ventrue
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Id Pro Quo 2020





	Nights That Bind Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ilthit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/gifts).



Johanne flexes her arms in the chains that are wrapped around them. She looks at her sire in disbelief. He remains silent, face set like stone. "If I refuse?"

"Then I assume you are guilty, and you die at dawn," the Prince says. The shadows that surround her shimmer like heat waves. Johanne does not look through the obfuscation, although she has that ability. The shadows are a kindness the Prince does not always grant.

"I did not kill them." Johanne almost raises her voice, which would be a mistake. She would protest, but knows it is no use, and if her sire will not speak for her, her pleading would sound pathetic. She will not be pathetic in front of the powerful Kindred gathered here.

"Then you give your pledge to remain obedient to the warden we appoint until the Council determines your fate." This is a statement, not a question. The Prince lifts one shadowy arm and gestures at the Ventrue primogen, who stands. 

He is a sometime ally of her sire's, but they have fallen out in the last year or so. Jehane has believed the two men still share some remnant of accord until she sees the look that passes between them. There is gloating behind the false humility on the Ventrue's face, and cold fury on her sire's for a moment until the stony dispassion returns.

The rest of the council appears pleased at the whole stupid mess. The Malkavian primogen is not present, and the rest hate and distrust the Tremere. One of Johanne's clan being accused of two Kindred slayings and held to account like this seems to be their idea of schadenfreude, if not justice. 

About the two she's accused of killing, Johanne's glad both are dead. Especially Vandeny, that useless waste of vitae. Gizi, she might regret someday, there were good nights with Gizi, but her betrayal is fresh enough that Johanne is still glad, tonight, that Gizi is no more. So she has that much motive, but it wouldn't have been worth the risk of _this_. 

"Henriette, will you escort the prisoner to her new living quarters?" 

_Her_ Johanne does not expect. They have barely met before, but Johanne knows that Henriette Brodeur is said to be the progeny of the primogen's own sire, if much younger, and likely residing with him since she is new to the city. Johanne wonders why he does not foist the Tremere prisoner onto some lesser clan member, one whose bloodline he would not mind exposing to the risk of proximity to a thaumaturgist.

Because the Ventrue primogen knows Johanne's power over the blood of Kindred and her ability to read it. She wonders about Henriette's power, how advanced her charm and control have become, if she has followed the usual practice of the Ventrue in honing those skills most of all. 

Henriette is very beautiful. Johanne refuses to let her captor's beauty affect her. The lovely Ventrue looks angry, put upon, frustrated, and then it all goes away as their eyes meet. "Come, then, warlock." 

Johanne does not even try to avoid meeting Henriette's eyes. The Prince might unfairly take such evasion as evidence of her guilt. "I should not have to. But I'm told it's the only way you will believe the truth." She lets the contempt slip into her tone, then immediately regrets it. 

Her sire does not look pleased. The Prince looks at him. "Miroslaw Sajac, do you vouch for Johanne Mazur of Clan Tremere, that her pledge is given and she will honor it?"

He should, she has never so much as lied to him or gone against a single command, she has been a model childe. Instead he evades the question. "Johanne is released and responsible for her own actions, my liege."

The Prince doesn't press the issue. Henriette is dismissed, and Johanne follows. She feels a low key fear and annoyance about how pretty her assigned warden is, how much she wants them to get along, to be _friends._ It might be the Ventrue's presence power taking effect. It's probably just that, which is infuriating. Johanne hates having Kindred powers used against her, especially by non-Tremere, but at least it's not one of the _seeing_ powers. 

Henriette might have an idea of what her presence does to others but she won't really know, will she, not the way Johanne knows when she looks at people the way she wasn't tonight, with her powers of sight, and sees all their feelings and sometimes their thoughts, too. 

That's the one she hates most when people use it on her. She likes her privacy too much.

The house Henriette takes her to is more like a mansion. It's very different from the Chantry, though, which could also reasonably be called a mansion. There's soft upholstered furniture here, knickknacks whose only reason for existence is being tasteful or valuable or antique. There's wallpaper with ornate patterns. The chantry has bare walls on which thaumaturgists have drawn sigils, and anything sitting on a shelf or table is an artifact of power or an object one of them plans to imbue with power. It is an entirely different ambience. 

They're alone here, it looks like. They walk through a hallway and a parlor and another hallway and up a staircase. These are Henriette's rooms, her suite, Johanne thinks, wanting to ask but unwilling to break the silence that lasts until Henriette closes the door behind them. 

"You may expect to be here at least a week," the Ventrue says, "and I don't want it to be unpleasant." The warmth renews itself between them, Henriette probably leaning on her power just as she's leaning close to Johanne. She's a few inches shorter, the top of her head at the level of Johanne's upper lip. 

Johanne blinks away the sensory image of how it would feel to have that head leaning on her shoulder, the soft hair brushing against her collarbone. "I'm Tremere. Don't you think we're all unpleasant?" It's empty bravado. Johanne looks away from the Ventrue, down to the thick tan carpet, just a few shades too dull to be gold. "I really didn't kill either of them," she says truthfully, and then, "and I suppose they'll figure that out," which she's less sure of. 

"Kneel, and give me your formal pledge, Johanne Mazur," the Ventrue says, her voice going all cool and smooth. She's not putting power behind the words, just saying them in a smug tone that does something twisty inside Johanne's guts, something not entirely unpleasant. 

Johanne feels a lot of different ways about this, and doesn't want to look too closely at any of them. "I already did that in front of the Prince. What would be the point?"

"The point is, to make this pleasant, you need to do what I say. You haven't made a good start." Henriette tilts her head back as she makes eye contact. "I don't like looking up at you, so kneel." 

This time there's power behind it and Johanne doesn't waste her energy resisting. She's on her knees and the carpet's soft enough, her trousers' fabric sturdy enough, that it's not uncomfortable. She takes initiative and speaks her pledge before Henriette can ask again. "I give myself into your keeping willingly, Henriette Brodeur, my word as bond, my blood as forfeit, that I offer no violence and attempt no escape." It wasn't exactly the traditional formula, but it was probably good enough. 

"You are my vassal, and I your liege, until I release you." What Henriette replies is the exact traditional formula with some kind of power behind the words so that Johanne isn't sure exactly what the Ventrue's voice is doing to her. She is light-headed. "Elder brother warned me not to let you even catch the scent of my blood, but I have nothing to hide from your power, warlock. So I will offer this to you freely." The Ventrue draws her knife. 

Johanne feels her fangs press against her lip. She tastes her own blood, coppery-sweet in front of her lower teeth where the tips of the sharp canines have slipped right into the soft flesh. She was fed before being brought to court, so she can't need vitae, but she's suddenly _hungry._ "Offer me what?"

But it's obvious. Henriette holds the knife against her own wrist. "If you drink, it will be easier for me to control you," she says. They both already knew that. "And you will know more about me than you do now." They both know that too. The Ventrue's not stupid. She has a reason for saying these things out loud, not leaving them implicit. 

Johanne almost knows that reason, but it eludes her, distracted as she is by hunger. She ought to say no, that's her first thought. But maybe there is enough reason she ought to say yes. She might find something important out, something her Chantry can use against the local Ventrue later, after this is all over. She will be able to affect Henriette with rituals more easily if she's tasted her blood. 

But she will also have a vulnerability to Henriette's power. It's almost equal, this exchange, what would be traded between them. And, irrelevant to her decision but deeply felt nevertheless, she wants so much to taste this beauty. "Yes," she says, attempting an offhand tone, and it comes out in a whisper. She isn't sure if that's why, but Henriette's expression softens, a hand strokes Johanne's cheek with the light touch of the back of cool fingers, polished nails. 

The knife slides across the wrist, bites, leaves a line of red behind. Johanne presses her mouth to the cut, seals her lips to Henriette's wrist and drinks. Not much, the cut was shallow and heals quickly, but more than enough for both their purposes. As if in a vision, the Tremere sees the branching pathway of blood of the ages, through Henriette's sire who is also the Primogen's sire, and his sire, and hers, four more Kindred between that elder and the Antediluvian, who she is far too weak to see anything about. Even the fifth and fourth generations are little more than vague impressions, but lesser than that and they are clear enough. 

If Henriette really is the get of the same Kindred as her primogen, this is important and valuable information. But Johanne thinks it is not at all certain that is the case. And Henriette's blood is completely clear of the taint of diablerie. For that, Johanne is grateful, both existentially to not be under the control of a depraved diablerist and more immediately to be spared the unpleasant aftertaste.

A proper bloodline trace requires _looking_ too, to be fully effective, and that means Johanne can see Henriette's emotions in a swirl of color around her. There's pleasure, that's from having her blood drunk most likely, it's intense and Johanne feels very good about herself for a moment having been the agent of such pleasure. Then a stab of regret at knowing it needs to be only the one time. For most Kindred that would be a little more lax, three is the standard number, but Johanne's lineage means two is enough to bind her permanently.

There are other ways to give pleasure, even to Kindred, and they all take more effort. She hears within her mind, in Henriette's voice though not aloud, a thought that kicks her between the eyes, Henriette thinking of one of those ways, one that Johanne's position kneeling in front of her had brought to her mind. Johanne freezes when she hears that thought, the glow of desire it lights in her making it all she can do to keep herself from biting, which would be a mistake, a violation of her pledge. 

_She wants this to be pleasant,_ Johanne thinks, barely suppressing hysterical laughter as she draws back from the bare trickle of blood remaining at Henriette's wrist. That's a Ventrue understatement if she's ever heard one. 

That night does pass pleasantly, enough so the long hair Johanne didn't have the energy to keep from growing back yesterday remains an afterthought. Pulled back from her head in a neat club, it's not that much trouble, though she prefers her head shaved. She doesn't think Henriette will give her a razor, though. Pledge or not, that wouldn't be a smart risk to take.

Several hours pass in a haze of flirtation and a series of card games. It's a nice break from the lab work and the ritual maintenance that usually fill Johanne's late nights, after the social duties of the evening are taken care of. Tonight is different, tonight she is a prisoner awaiting evidence, awaiting trial, and her jailer is quietly but definitely enjoying the situation. 

Johanne likes this being her secret to keep as she chooses. She knows they're both into it, but Henriette does not. Henriette has all the power, and Johanne has all the knowledge, which is exactly the way Tremere and Ventrue ordinarily divide things. Knowledge lets you manipulate power, and that's Johanne's edge here. Henriette is too noble in the rigid Ventrue way to take full advantage, but she might if she knew how intrigued Johanne is by the prospect. So Johanne has a bribe. 

Tempting-to-use bribe, Johanne hopes she can keep the secret until she really needs it, but having one at all is excellent, putting her in a better position than she expected. Maybe her sire knew, maybe he had planned Johanne to be a suspect, known who was likely to be tasked with keeping her. He might have _told_ her, but maybe he thinks this way is likelier to work. Maybe he trusts her to figure it out and play it right. A happy thought.

Johanne doesn't play her very best card game, she lets herself have fun and gives Henriette chances to win, which results in Henriette winning a little over half the hands and coming out the overall victor. She could offer a forfeit, that might be too much of a give-away though, so she instead makes a self-deprecating remark about her difficulty concentrating under the circumstances, letting it rest on the edge of a flirtation or an expression of the accusation hanging over her. Johanne's not a social butterfly, but she's had enough romantic entanglements to know how to play this kind of line. And she's still _looking_ , picking up emotions and stray thoughts now and then from the Ventrue, enjoying them tremendously.

"That Gangrel was your friend, wasn't she?" the Ventrue asks. 

"Gizi, yes, we were friends for a while. We drifted apart." Johanne has relaxed. It's so warm and welcoming being here with Henriette, they're getting on so well. It's more like a vacation than like jail, really.

 _When did you last see Gizi, anyway?_ Henriette wonders. Her lips are pursed as she studies her cards, planning her next play in the card game and her next question for Johanne. 

Interrogation is a second simultaneous game they're playing, and since Johanne didn't kill anyone, she figures it's best if she lets Henriette win that game too. "Haven't seen her for weeks." As soon as the words leave her mouth, she catches her mistake. Henriette hasn't asked that question out loud. "Oops."

It's Henriette's turn to freeze in place. The Ventrue is holding her cards so tightly they begin to fold in on themselves. Johanne expects to see anger, and it's there in the colors swirling around the Ventrue's head, but there's relief there, too, and excitement, a whole kaleidoscope of colors moving too fast for even Johanne to guess what all of them are before they're replaced by yet others. 

The two of them stare at one another without a word being said. The Ventrue crumples her cards into a wad as if they were letter-paper and drops them on the floor. She's strong, then. Ventrue often have that unnatural strength, and though Henriette is slender and looks as if she has no muscle to speak of, she's probably got the equivalent of steel in her grip. Johanne tests and discards possible things to say, and they all seem like terrible ideas, so she says none of them. 

"Dawn is in less than an hour," Henriette says, breaking into the silence with a taut statement. "I'll show you your room." She puts her hand on Johanne's wrist and pulls her to her feet. "Follow."

Johanne follows. They reach a wooden door with a barred security door in front of it. A ring of keys holds one that unlocks it, Henriette finding it swiftly as if already familiar with its particular shape, pressing the door against its jamb as she turns the key in the lock. The bars swing open outward, the wood door remaining closed. Henriette unlocks the wooden door with the same key and it opens inward into the room. The Ventrue enters, Johanne standing at the doorway a moment to take it in.

This is where she'll be spending the day. There are no windows, no bed. There is a desk with a chair, a large chest that is not a coffin but probably serves as a resting place, and rings set into the walls in metal vertical strips that run from ceiling down into the tile on the floor. There is a cheap area rug on the tile with a small table on it, a pitcher and cup resting on top of the rough undyed tablecloth. 

The chest has a padlock. Johanne suddenly does not want to be locked inside there, though she is sure that's about to happen. The level of fear that spikes in her is so much greater than anything she's felt this entire night of accusation and unfair risk to her safety and freedom that she has no idea what to do with herself. It's all she can do to keep herself from slipping into a panic that is only separated from rotschrek by a fine line. She isn't even afraid of fire itself, not with her studies into the path of flame, but facing the sun would be worse than this is, barely. 

Logically it would be much worse, but in the moment Johanne can't remember that. 

Henriette's impatience flares in her aura as Johanne remains at the doorway. 

An anxious feeling that she's making Henriette like her less breaks through the anticipatory claustrophobia, and Johanne hurries in, moving to the Ventrue's side. Henriette glances up at her sharply, still sparkling in that impatient color, and Johanne sinks to her knees. Satisfied swirls in magenta and sky-blue replace the jagged dark jewel tones. "Please," Johanne can't help herself from saying, and she sees the red-and-blue of desire mix in at the word. 

"Please what?" None of the emotions Johanne can see are audible in the Ventrue's unruffled tone of voice. She sounds mildly puzzled, nothing more. 

"The padlock. Please don't." Johanne doesn't exactly like sounding this pitiful, but one, she can see it turning the Ventrue on and giving her all sorts of possible leverage, and two, she's terrified and it's easier not to try to hide that right this moment. 

"All right. You're safe enough locked into the room. I won't lock you in the crate, if." The Ventrue stops at the caveat, leaving it unstated. 

Johanne listens to her thoughts. She thinks she hears that the condition is that she does not emerge until Henriette opens the box for her in the evening. It's not that easy to get every thought, not like the emotions that are always visible, and she hopes she got it right. 

"Thank you, my liege," Johanne says, the formal term since she's given her pledge. It's the first time she has done so, having been using Henriette's name all night.

She sees the pleased reaction the Ventrue has to the form of address even as Henriette denies it. "No need for formality, Johanne, we are already becoming friends." Johanne is still kneeling at her feet, and she slides her fingers through Johanne's hair.

Suddenly Johanne really wants the hair shaved off, though she's been fine with it all night up to this moment. But no point doing so now, right before sleep. In the evening, she thinks. 

The evening comes and Johanne awakens in the trunk that is not locked. She could emerge immediately if she wished. She tells herself that five and then a sixth time and begins to believe it is true. She wants to get up and shave her hair off, feel the air on her scalp, bathe and change into fresh clothing. What will she wear? There's no way to answer that from in here, and she won't open it yet, not if it means being locked in tomorrow. She distracts herself by running through a ritual in her mind.

Truth and lies are in her thoughts, so it's not too great a coincidence that the ritual that comes to mind is the bone of truth. It requires a fresh bone, best if anonymous, and a few uninterrupted hours of the thaumaturgist's time, and will compel a dozen truths from the one holding it in a bare hand. 

Johanne hasn't ever performed this ritual, but she's watched it done, and she's still distracting herself by seeing if she remembers the steps perfectly when she hears the barred and then the wooden door being unlocked. So it doesn't startle her when the lid opens and she's free. There was no sound of a padlock, so it wasn't there. She feels a wave of wellbeing at the realization.

She stands up in the box and says the first thing that comes into her head. "This all could have been solved if Sajac had thought to bring a bone," Johanne says, in lieu of _good evening_.

"Do tell me what you mean," Henriette says. She has a bemused look on her face, and her aura matches. So much more relaxed than when they parted last night that Johanne isn't sure what has changed. 

The Tremere explains the ritual. "Since I didn't kill Gizi or Vandeny, all I would have had to do is hold the bone and say so," she adds after the explanation is done. 

"Interesting," Henriette says. "I've brought you a change of clothes." She steps into the hallway and returns with a pile of folded cloth in cream and dark brown. A shirt, trousers, a low-cut waistcoat, very similar to what Johanne usually wears, only finer fabrics and better tailoring. It's also a little larger than an ideal fit, but not much. 

"Thank you." 

"I'll leave you to wash up and change, then." Henriette gestures at the pitcher. 

"Can't I have a bath?" There isn't even soap. Dousing herself in water and then dressing is not what Johanne is used to as routine hygiene. 

_The rooms for prisoners don't have baths._ Henriette's thought rings like crystal. She is silent, though her eyebrows lift as she tilts her head back to look at Johanne, which the Tremere is already learning to interpret as a mild reproach.

Johanne sinks to her knees on the rug and looks up at the Ventrue, already anticipating the pleased shift in her aura's shade. "Please may I have a bath?" she asks.

"Oh, all right. You can use mine," Henriette relents, and takes her to her suite. It has a sitting room, a small office, and a large bedroom with a four poster bed. The sitting room has windows that look out over a small lake that glistens in the moonlight, a lovely view. The bedroom has no windows at all and its door has a security door inside, nearly identical to the one on the outside of Johanne's room. The bathroom holds a luxurious tiled tub and an array of soaps and perfumes.

After Johanne is clean and dressed, they share a bottle of vitae at a splendid little table in Henriette's sitting room. Henriette says into the sociable quiet between them, "That ritual would never have worked."

"Why not?" Johanne is convinced it would have been as simple as she had it in her head, if only.

"No one would have believed it. At least, no one but the Tremere, not if you are telling the truth and nothing happened. Even if you demonstrated first with a transparent lie." Henriette seems entirely sure, and Johanne is left doubting her own conviction. She tries to puzzle it out.

"Oh," she says with disappointment and pride warring in her tone, when the pieces fall into place. "Because we could create a bone that looked just the same but didn't care about lies."

"Yes, and everyone knows it. And the rest of us can't tell for ourselves if it's a real truth bone or some kind of fake. So if it had proven you true, your sire would have been obligated to take your side, and mine would have equally been bound to doubt, and your Chantry being kicked out of the city might have been the least of the outcomes."

"But they would have believed it if it had convicted me." 

"More likely. Not all, though, anyone inclined to think you were a scapegoat would have doubted. But it would not have caused the falling out."

"So at the very least, Miroslaw thinks it's likely I'm innocent," Jehanne says, not entirely meaning to say it aloud, but so relieved she doesn't manage to stop herself in time. 

Henriette is silent. 

At first it is nice, to sit in silence together, but then Johanne begins to be unsure if Henriette is entirely all right. Something seems to be wrong, at least. Something is turning over and over behind Henriette's eyes and Johanne can't hear any thoughts, but she doesn't like the way Henriette's aura darkens with pain and sadness.

"He knows you are, I think," Henriette says after the silence has stretched so long Johanne is choking on unspoken words.

Johanne has figured that out, too. "Or doesn't care. Wants someone to blame more than knowing the culprit." Because he would have found a way to test her privately if he hadn't known. Just so he would know whether there was still a dangerous killer of Kindred out there to watch out for or not, if nothing else. She doesn't want to admit to Henriette she's so unvalued a childe that her sire would allow her to be blamed as it seems he has done. But she also does not want to lie. Henriette knows that isn't a possibility, and Johanne decides she doesn't want Henriette to think she's stupid or is lying. "No, I want to believe that, but it's not possible. He must know. And he let this happen anyway."

Henriette's suspicions aren't allayed by this. The indigo threads are spinning a thicker web in her aura than before, in fact. "Elder brother knows too." The Ventrue is not entirely sure, but she's not entertaining any serious doubts, either. "It's a trap," she concludes.

"Did he do it, do you think?" Johanne can't immediately follow Henriette's logic. 

"No," the Ventrue says, and the suspicion and unsureness is clear in the colors that surround her. "He wouldn't risk that. He knows who did, though. He has proof. This," and she gestures with a wave between herself and Johanne, "is to trap me, to use against me somehow, or get me to ask a boon of him. And against your sire, most likely. I don't know how he won Sajac's agreement to this charade."

"Miroslaw killed Gizi," Johanne says, and as she says it, she is sure it's true. She has no proof, and she will bet the Ventrue primogen doesn't either, but he did it. And, she thinks, maybe Gizi killed Vandeny, or maybe someone else the Ventrue primogen doesn't care for killed the Malkavian, but she knows her sire Miroslaw Sajac didn't. Miroslaw might, though, have killed Gizi if she'd been the one. He and Vandeny are, were, friends, there was something strong between them, not lust and not boons, but there, she has seen it in them both, a loyalty Miroslaw has for no one else outside the Chantry itself, and Vandeny had for no one else period. "Because he thinks she killed Vandeny, and he might be right."

There is only one move they can make, and they decide on it together. Take what they have to the people who care about who really killed Gizi, and rely on them for help to escape. The Prince is probably in on this, and if she isn't, she won't want the evidence she let herself be manipulated this way from a Tremere neonate and a Ventrue ancilla new to the city. The primogen are too bound by politics and power hierarchy to be any use. Gizi's allies and progeny are neonate Camarilla and anarchs, and it's the anarchs who will defy the elders for them if they know. Vandeny doesn't really have any allies other than his worse than crazy childe and Miroslaw, as far as Johanne knows, and she doesn't think she'd trust them with this. 

The anarchs it is. Henriette and Johanne pack light and make it to the edge of town before midnight. It's three in the morning by the time they find one of the Gangrel sentries and he takes them to the anarchs' camp. 

The anarchs turn them away. The Kindred they want to see, Gizi's sworn sister Lucine, would be an elder if she were Camarilla, but she's not interested in politics or cities. She's as Gangrel as they come, all her power going to honing her fighting skills and the connection with the natural world that most Kindred can't hang onto after the false death. All the anarchs listen to Lucine. 

And Lucine says no, some young anarch whelp tells them, she won't see them. "Come back tomorrow," he adds when Johanne says she has important information, really, about what happened to Gizi. "If you're going to confess to her or something, she'll see you tomorrow. She's not seeing no one tonight." 

"All right," Henriette says. Maybe tomorrow night it'll work. If they can survive that long with elders hunting them down, the Prince sending someone after them when the Ventrue primogen notices they're not in his house anymore. 

She takes Johanne to a town house on a quiet street where one of her thralls lives, one she says "Elder Brother" doesn't know about. The creature is only too happy to play host, or so he claims unasked. 

"Have you a razor?" Johanne suggests, when the toady inquires what he can do to make the "ladies" comfortable. 

He brings one, but Henriette intervenes when he tries to hand it to Johanne. "I will take that," she says. The black handle with nickel inset holds a sharp steel blade. The Ventrue unfolds it. 

"All I need is to get this mop off my head," Johanne said. The weight on her head weighs down her spirit more than the false accusation, and she doesn't consider it any kind of twisted priority. It is only what she has to do to be herself.

"Hold very still, and I will oblige you," the Ventrue says. "Why a razor? Would scissors not be simpler and less risky?" 

"They would leave too much behind," Johanne answers. She sits on a footstool and holds herself immobile, far more still than any human, even one fed to indefinite youth on Kindred vitae. 

The long lashes dip and rise as Henriette regards the prospect. Johanne wondered whether she has ever used a straight razor, and if she has, whether she knows how to shave a pate with one. She can hear the floor creak as the Ventrue walks around her. 

And she can hear the man returning. He has a soap bowl, brush and tepid water, and a small folding table. He brings them into the room and set them down. His heart is thumping in his chest, loud to Johanne's sensitive hearing. "This should be everything you need, ma-- my ladies, for your work." 

"I need a basin of hot water, and a bottle of eau de toilette," the Ventrue says. 

Johanne watches the man leave again. 

Henriette whisks the soap into a froth. "I have shaved men's faces with a razor like this one many times," she says, "but never a woman's head. Do you do anything with all the hair?"

At one time, Johanne considered selling it to be used in wigs, but she never has. It goes into the refuse bin with the other useless matter that accumulates in her laborator in the Chantry. Which she is now exile from. "Nothing in particular," she says.

She likes feeling Henriette touch her as she shaves off the hair almost as much as she likes having the uncomfortable and unwanted weight of hair off her head and neck. Henriette caresses her bare head, feeling the closeness of the shave, and Johanne can see the desire in her aura growing. 

"He won't come back and interrupt, will he?" she asks.

Henriette shrugs. "It is of no matter. He might, if he thinks I want something." 

Johanne's lost everything in two nights, everything in her world, for the second time in her existence. She lost everything becoming Tremere, and now she's lost the Chantry and all her research, everything she has, everything she _is_. She's gained only this beautiful Ventrue in return, and she hasn't got any will to resist taking all of what she has left. "I don't want him bothering us," she says in a low voice, and heedless of the razor's sharpness she grabs Henriette and kisses her. 

The Ventrue's aura flares with a combination of lust, anger, and astonishment. It burns hot, hot, and Johanne adores the colors in it. She slides to her knees and slips under Henriette's skirts, sliding her hands up the insides of the thighs to where her undergarments cover what Johanne is looking for. 

Henriette steps lightly aside and her iron-strong arm pushes Johanne's face into the floor. "I did not give you permission to do that," she says softly, so low Johanne might not have heard it from the floor if it weren't for her supernaturally sharp hearing. 

"You wanted me to, though," Johanne said into the carpet. It was dusty rose shag and the yarn of it was getting in her mouth. She thought Henriette understood her anyway.

"I say when. You don't just jump me, warlock." 

"Then, Henriette, please. Please say it."

"Hmm. Stay where you are." Henriette's arm moves off the back of Johanne's neck, but the Tremere stays down. It seems like her play is working, and if it is, she doesn't want to risk spoiling things. 

The undergarment Johanne was just looking at under the Ventrue's skirt lands next to her ear. She grins. 

Soon Johanne is back underneath Henriette's skirts with nothing in the way of her hands or her mouth. She sets to her work with enthusiasm. It's good that she does not need to breathe. She's not unnaturally strong like Henriette, but the Ventrue is light, so it's not too difficult to support her weight when she needs to. It's uncomfortable to have her neck bent at this angle, but it's the most welcome discomfort Johanne can imagine. It's bliss. 

She can almost forget how her existence is in tatters and neither of them might live out the week. Both of them can. Henriette's thoughts are flyaway wisps of thrilling ideas for nights in the future and lovely visual images of what she imagines Johanne is doing between her legs, or wants Johanne to do next, exciting, amusing, and helpful in turns. An excellent distraction.

The next evening, they return to the anarchs. They picked up a tail, clumsy about such things, this time, but the sentries dispatch him, mortal not Kindred so easily enough, and this time they are allowed in to see Lucine.

They tell her everything. She listens, all the while sharpening an enormous silver blade. "Can't be too careful," is the only thing she says about _that_ when Johanne asks if there are werewolves nearby. 

"You can stay," is her verdict, "but on one condition. Tremere aren't trustable. Not if they're not bound." 

Henriette begins to protest. Johanne knows better. Lucine's mind is made up, and furthermore, she's not wrong. No one but the Tremere even knows what a given Tremere can do, and even their own clan can't be sure. Thaumaturgy has too many different applications. Johanne herself has discovered or invented a few that only she and Miroslaw even know about. And maybe that's, but, she can't think about that now. She has to focus on the present until they figure out a way through.

"You can't say, after all we went through to give you information about Gizi's death, that you're going to kick her out if she won't let you blood bond her," Henriette says indignantly. 

"I can and I almost just did. But no, I don't want a warlock thrall, not me." Lucine shakes her head and Johanne can see the disgust all over her aura. 

It's enough to make her back away. "I'm not that bad, I swear," Johanne says in protest.

"You bond her," Lucine says to Henriette.

"What? I can't," Henriette says. She sounds sincere, but also Johanne can see the longing in her aura. She wants to say yes, she just thinks it's wrong.

"Doesn't sound like you have a choice," Johanne says, not even trying to pretend to be upset. This is it, the answer. Her blood sings in her veins at the thought. She won't miss the Chantry at all if she's bonded to Henriette, and, she finds, she wants that very much. It's already almost like that; she's one drink away, and that plus the presence powers Henriette used, and how good it feels to be desired by someone so beautiful, well. 

Before she can have a rational thought that explains why this is a terrible idea, which it most certainly is, and why Henriette's qualms are ones she ought to share, which she definitely should, Johanne burns her vitae in her veins to be fast enough to have her teeth around Henriette's wrist before anyone can blink.

She gives Henriette a moment in which the Ventrue can, if she wants, pull away. Johanne is holding Henriette's wrist as tight as she can, but they both know the Ventrue is much stronger. Henriette's wrist stays where it is. Johanne's teeth sink in. Her mouth drinks in the hot, delicious lifeblood and her eyes drink in the pleasure shooting flares through Henriette's aura and swelling it to triple its previous size. Johanne could swear she can feel the aura rubbing against her skin like a soft piece of velvet, it's so good. 

Johanne looks up at the Ventrue and the Gangrel in triumph. "It's done," she says to both of them. "I'm yours," she adds, only to Henriette. 

"Welcome to the anarchs," Lucine says, amused. "I'll have the quartermaster find you a tent, and show you a cave you can shelter in for the day." 

"No," Henriette says to Johanne, ignoring the anarch elder. "That's just two." 

"That's all it takes for the warlocks," Lucine says, at the same time as Johanne tries to explain the same thing, but can't think of the right words. So the Tremere just nods her head. 

"But that's," Henriette says, then goes silent. 

"That's all I needed. Get out of here, I have work to do. I'll send someone for you when we go after Gizi's killer." Her look at Johanne isn't disgust anymore, it's pity. Pity isn't really any better. "It's a kindness," Lucine adds, directing her words at Henriette, who still has streaks of horror at herself for what she's done, her choice or no. "We're going to take down her sire. She won't mind as much, like this."

"What's done is done," Johanne says, standing up finally. Her legs are wobbly for a moment, but she gets stable quickly enough. She feels strong and ready for anything after less than thirty seconds of being on her feet. She took an appreciable amount more of Henriette's vitae this time than last, and there's undeniable potence in her new regnant's blood. 

Her third life is going to be better than the two before it, she thinks. Time to start living for real.


End file.
